On titles, and a POLL

[dragojustine]

You totally don't have to read the navel-gazing; just skip to the poll!

So picking titles sure does suck, doesn't it? Most of the time I get to the end of a fic and haven't once thought about a title, and have to come up with something. Sometimes the results are purely workmanlike: 'Five First Kisses' and 'Second Chances,' both of which are perfectly fine but I think those fics are fairly emotionally complex (for their length) and really deserve better. Sometimes the results really, really suck: 'Problem Solving'... really? I called it that?

So far there are two titles I genuinely like. 'Fighting Instincts' can mean three different things in that fic, all of which are significant. 'Just a Hole in Arizona' points out the way both boys have seized on the Grand Canyon as a symbol despite its original lack of significance, and the way the fic isn't actually about the Grand Canyon at all- just the ways the boys' use of the Canyon, and the ways they think about it, parallel their uses of and thoughts about and motivations for incest. I'm actually pretty proud of that.

That said, I also have a whole stash of titles that I really desperately want to use, quotes that for me hit rich emotional notes that just need a character to inhabit them. Until a week ago, I was completely unable to get from the title to the fic. Then I wrote "Truest Type of Love," which is a title I've always wanted to use for Dean Winchester. The quote is "Sacrificing your happiness for the happiness of the one you love is, by far, the truest type of love," and I think it's perfect for a fic where Dean commits incest -- and fucks himself up utterly and irreversibly in the process -- to try to make Sam happy. Sweet at first glance, and then horrifying.

Then I was on a roll, so I pulled another quote that I've been just desperate to use in a fic, from the song "Southern Cross." The song hits a heady emotional note for me: alone, in exile, utterly isolated someplace so far from home even the stars are wrong. It didn't work in SPN because stars don't carry a solid emotional punch for those boys, but of course they do for Jack O'Neill. Stargate is the perfect fandom for that song, and I think the bleakness of the quote makes the careful connection between Jack and Daniel all the more precious.

Anyway, there are still a lot more quotes I want to use, though for a lot of them, I still don't know the action beats that would get the characters to that emotional note. (cue a random selection of recent bunnies, just for me to keep track of)

-"Every sacred thing you thought you sold"- The story of Daniel Jackson betraying the SGC (because of some sort of manipulation by Ammonet- I don't know the plot that would convince me of this yet), and how it feels for him to be forgiven by Jack.

-Something from Train Tracks, either "An open empty boxcar stares at you" or "Your passport has been kissed the holy fool"- I suspect this is the story of John Sheppard, worn out and resigned and exhausted, making the leap of faith to go to Atlantis.

-"Some have to live with the scars"- Dean Winchester, when Sam can shake off their childhood and the incest and head to Standford to put together a perfectly normal, happy life for himself, and Dean is left behind utterly destroyed by it.

-"Through me is the way to the woeful city"- This is evil!Sam, obviously. I will be reading the Inferno in November. We'll see then.

-Something from Viva la Vida, probably "Pillars of salt, pillars of sand"- clearly the story of Sam trying to regain his humanity after he goes a little too close to the edge.

Anyway, I find myself curious about other people, so this is the part where I bat my eyelashes and beg you all prettily to take my polls. Please?

[Poll #1264463]

[Poll #1264464]

And anything you want to tell me in comments, of course!

Comments

[lim.livejournal.com]

I really seriously hate and despise song lyric titles. I quite often stage a sort of individual silent protest and boycott fics with song lyric titles in the hope people will get (at least one fewer) fewer comments and take the HINT. I can't bear it. I have vivid recall of music and reading down a community full of song title fics is like having a broken, jumping radio installed in my eyeball. I hate them! Stop it! All of you! SHUSH. *bangs head on wall*

Stories where writers define words at the beginning--that was stupidly popular a while back but it's dying back a bit now--but they make me lol. I want to write a story called, I don't know, Boot or something:

Boot

~# Protective footgear, as of leather or rubber, covering the foot and part or all of the leg.~

*nods solemnly* Aye.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Oh God. I remember the definition trend. I think I saw fics that used that to stunningly good effect... like, two of them. Out of dozens.

RE song lyrics: I'm firmly in the camp that as long as the lyric is unknown enough that the vast majority of your audience won't immediately start humming a tune- ie, you're using it as a line of poetry and less as a song lyric- it's fine. But I know some people react with violent hate. If you have really good music recall, that really makes a lot of sense (but do you still hate even if you didn't know it was a lyric, and only find out later?)

[fakymcfakerson.livejournal.com]

I think that song lyrics, poetry, the definition thing, and various other things can all be used for good or evil. Sometimes, they're a handy way of alluding to what's to come (or helping to define the overall tone), other times, they feel pretentious, or like part of the author's "notes to self" that got left in and are rather detached from the story.

There's no title that will put me off of a story that's been specifically rec'd, however, in common browsing, the one thing that'll make my eyes glaze over faster than anything is "(blank) is just another word for (apparently non-synonymous other word)". I mean, song lyrics? It's not like I google titles before I start reading something, and chances are, I'm not going to recognize the title anyway (because I listen to vastly different things than ficcers, I guess, that, and my hearing ain't so good).

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Huh. My first reaction is that I've never seen that anywhere other than "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," which is one of the five greatest pieces of fanfic of all time, in any fandom (and if you like SGA and have avoided it for that, you should read).

Then I started thinking and realized I've seen it EVERYWHERE. Now I will be all hypersensitized and twitchy, damn it! *shakes fist*

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

I think titles are really important and I am not good at thinking them up. Usually I cheat and use song lyrics. This also sucks because hardly anyone likes the same music I like. Also people hate songfic. I think of a title at any point and in any way. There is no routine. I also am very bad at remembering titles. I remember authors a heck of a lot easier than titles.

I think all this goes back to my days as a newspaper reporter. I treat story titles like headlines. They get written last, someone other than the writer writes the headline and they are really important, but not to the writer.

Basically I suck at titles and I don't see that changing.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the journalism/headlines thing actually makes a lot of sense. Headlines are supposed to provide a lot of very concentrated, workmanlike information very quickly, whereas coming from literature and not journalism, I've always thought titles were there to allude and nudge and add richness and shape a reader's interpretation of the work in subtle ways, but not to actually provide any information. And those two things call for entirely different thought processes (and maybe using a title to serve the purposes of a headline is actually a good thing, or has its uses, especially in the high-volume world of fanfic?)

Interesting

[sid]

Oy. Titles. Sometimes they come easily, other times I sit crosslegged on a street corner with my hat outstretched.

I looked back over some of my stuff and noticed that among the song lyrics and straight-forward titles and literary quotes, there are some that sprang from a line of dialogue or one specific moment in a story, rather than an overall theme or tone.

and I might like (semi-)puns a little bit

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Your favorite title made me grin like a madwoman :) I mean, nothing wrong with it as long as it isn't jarringly opposed to the mood of the fic, right?

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

forgot to say i could not pick a favorite title of my own fic. none really stand out to me.

i kind of liked "The General Takes A Vacation" because it was understated, an echo of a 1950s ad campaign that no one under Jack's age would even remember, but the ad campaign was definitely domestic and so was the fic.

but it's not really a very good title. i dunno.

also i guess i am physically incapable of hating song lyric titles or fic that verges songfic because getting inspired by a song allowed me to write "Memphis" and I can't be mad about any of that process. At all. Nope. :). *hangs head*

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Re the old ad campaign- really? That's cool. See, that's exactly the kind of thing I sort of adore (though it works better for a short story- wouldn't really carry a novella), provided there's an author's note to clue me in. (Without the AN, it just looks like a perfectly serviceable straightforward one to me. Which is not a problem.)

I will have to put that one on my to-read list now!

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

My answers were all over the place because I don't have a set plan apart from usually waiting to the end to choose one. Sometimes they come in a blinding flash and they're perfect, sometimes I pick away moodily until one's good enough.

But they're very, very hard to pick in general. My co-writer and I once wrote a novel in 5 weeks, over 110,000 words, then took a week to pick a title :;g::

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yeah, the only overwhelming conclusion in the poll seems to be "Hard. Really hard."

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I have to say I have never, ever come up with a title and then written a story to go with it. I kind of boggle to think of it. So, go you!

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

I'm the only one who's picked that answer. *headscratch* I actually kind of thought that was common- I know in SPN fandom, there are quite a lot of title challenge ficathons (ie, the random title generator challenges, the "Firefly episode title" or "West Wing episode title" challenges, that sort of thing). I guess maybe that differs by fandom?

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

Oh, gawd, I hate trying to think of titles. Which is weird; you'd think I'd love it, since I love word games and poetry and such. It's just that they're always the last step, right before I post, and by that time the creative well is good and drained and I just want the damned story out there and over with.

My pet peeve is titles in French. Not famous French quotes, as far as I can tell, just random Plumes de ma tante to lend the tale that extra dash of artsy-farts. Except of course as soon as I say that I want to call my own grand, sweeping, (entirely unwritten,) post-descension Daniel epic Mieux qu'ici bas, after a song by a Isabelle Boulay. German titles don't seem to bug me as much. Latin is dodgy -- Carthago Delenda Est, f'rinstance, works really well for me, but just see if I ever click on another Memento Mori. :P

For a while there, Buffy fandom had a rash of what rahirah dubbed "furniture refurbishment" fics: Restoration and Reparation and Redemption and etc., usually involving some or other of the vampires evolving from bad guy to good guy amidst much angst and ballyhoo. rahirah, actually, is currently winning my Title of the Year award for Zombie Barbie Says You're It. *g*

Gooood question, and I hope lots of people answer with their best dos and don'ts.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Just random foreign languages, with no famous quotes? Blech. With the exception of Latin, in the Supernatural fandom- but they, Latin packs a symbolic significance in that fandom. MISUED Latin, on the other hand... *twitch* (No, writers, you cannot just look the words up in a dictionary and stick them together. They have to be properly conjugated or declined. If you don't know what this means, back AWAY from the Latin dictionary!)

Then again, if I ever see a fic titled Carthago Delenda Est, wild horses could pretty much not prevent me from clicking.

[eboniorchid.livejournal.com]

I go round and round with my titles, honestly. Usually I have a title pretty soon after I have an idea, especially if I've written even a sentence or have a scene already in my mind. Often, they are plain-old descriptors, but unless you're in my head, you're not necessarily going to know what the story is about. I mean "Walking" for instance, is literally about walking, in a way, but it is, as I think missyjack said, an innocuous title hiding a hell of a lot of emotional tension. Similarly (and yet not), "The Heat Outside Will Never Warm Him" is a significantly more poetic title that came to me while I was working through the writing of the fic (Dean waking up on the morning of the apocalypse, knowing the fire outside is Sam's doing).

Sometimes, though, I pull phrases from the text itself. The only issue with that is that as a spoken word poet more than a fiction writer, I tend to want to return to a phrase often if it appears in both the title and the text and that can get monotonous after a while. I also draw from song lyrics sometimes. This is especially the case because I often have (and share) soundtracks to my fics and although the fic isn't *about* a song and rarely puts any piece of a song in the fic itself, music definitely influences how I think about a piece of fic and it makes sense to acknowledge that connection (sometimes) at the title level. (This is also why it makes me feel a little odd when people say they didn't listen to the soundtrack on one of my fics sometimes. The soundtracks are like the score in a movie to me. You get a totally different feel for a scene when you hear an angry rock anthem with it than when it's underscored by an ambient techno beat or something. IMHO)

Realistically, though, all my titles are working titles and subject to change. Sometimes (especially in the cases where I've made a phrase from the text into a title) I can get locked into a working title and be unable to find something that fits better even though it no longer does what I want it to do, but I'd say that a good 80% of my working titles end up being final titles too.

Interesting poll and discussion by the way.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, I was totally going to list some of my very favorite of other people's titles in this post (if it hadn't been too damn long already), things like "Like a Flag to the Floor" and "All Men Shall Be Sailors Until the Sea Frees Them" and "Hold the Darkness and Stay the Night." And "The Heat Outside Will Never Warm Him" was totally in that top five or ten of fanfic titles I most love- it sets a beautiful, haunting, chilling mood so quickly and surely.

This is also why it makes me feel a little odd when people say they didn't listen to the soundtrack on one of my fics sometimes.

Huh. I have never once listened to a fic soundtrack. I think I may have looked at the track list out of curiosity, but I would certainly never listen while I read. I guess it all comes down to me being all about TEXT TEXT TEXT to an unbalanced extent. Text carries so much weight and emotion for me, but more to the point, I LOVE the way text- just words on a page, nothing but that- can be used and crafted to convey all that. I don't WANT anything else influencing my emotions- I just want the craft of the text.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I didn't take the poll because none of the answers fit!

I almost always use lyrics, but I don't do it in a way where you have to know the song in order to get the connection. In fact, many of the lyrics I've chosen, the rest of the song doesn't fit at all. It's just about that one line. The relation to the story may not be obvious when you first click, but it should absolutely be obvious by the end of the story.

Titles are one of the last things I do before posting. I never have a title beforehand, and the filename is usually something descriptive like the name of the fest or prompt I'm using or what have you. I really need to have the whole fic finished before I can even begin to think of a title.

The way I choose a title is I go through lyrics websites browsing lyrics by artists whose lyrics I like. This can often take half an hour or even longer to find something that I feel both fits and stands on its own, being explanatory without requiring the reader to know anything about the song.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

So, treating song lyrics as a line of poetry. *nodnod* I like that. After all, it's not like I expected anyone to 'get' Stars up Above You, since it was written by a fairly obscure local musician in my hometown. It just felt right. Then again, I'm less capable of separating the one line from the rest of the song than you are, it sounds like.

[deird1]

(here from metafandom)

Generally, my best fics are the ones that get a title halfway through... not sure why...


I picked one favourite fic title, but I actually have four:
Dial N For Nancy-Boy
Glowy Green Things
Deep Into The Well
and
The Slow Slip Into Wonderful Nothing
...which are all my most obscure titles. Apparently I like obscurity more than I thought. Huh.

One of my hardest titles was for a ficathon piece starring Fred Burkle. It took me days to come up with a title.
Finally I settled on "Not The Way It Works", partly because it's a quote from the story, and also because the fic is about Fred solving an action case by herself - which is a very odd thing to have happen. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but once I wrote it down I couldn't think of it as anything else.

One of my least favourite titles is The Very Secret Diary Of Andrew Wells - which was a perfect title for the fic, really, but I've always wondered if people think it's going to be in a similar style to Cassie Clare's VSDs, and don't realise that it's actually quite different.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

RE: the VSD thing- man. Yeah. Talk about extra-textual information being a problem! That is a great title, with a very particular feel to it, but it's practically unusable in fandom now. I can see the problem.

[mandy-croyance.livejournal.com]

I feel like I ought to explain why I chose Grace by flash_indie as my favourite title. "Grace" as a concept is extremely relevant to the story's themes - in many ways it's about a man who searches for his own version of salvation. However, it is also the name of the narrator's mother, who is only mentioned by name only in passing during the first half of the story but whose diary figures rather prevalently in the latter. It was one of the first stories in which I had a moment of epiphany regarding the title.

(Okay, plus the author wrote the story before we found out that the character's mother is actually named Grace. Which is kind of awesome if you ask me, lol)

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

plus the author wrote the story before we found out that the character's mother is actually named Grace.

Dude. That author gets bragging rights for LIFE, eh?

I love that "moment of epiphany about the title" thing- that moment where the connection becomes clear and you feel like you understand SO much more.

[blackjackrocket.livejournal.com]

Most of the time I name fics after the prompt they're written for...which opens a can of worms should I be writing it for something *other* than a prompt comm. So my latest fic was called "Business Lunch", which is an absurdly normal title. Given that the central character in it is anything *but* normal it gave it a tone of irony...

...least that's what I'll *tell* people. Problem is I can't think of decent titles to save my life.

Although I'm "working on" (ie, haven't touched it in months because I can't think of how to get it to do what I want it to) a fic called Lost Like This. The full lyric is "I've never been lost like this/but I wouldn't be happy anywhere else" (it's from an Oingo Boingo song), and both the three words and the full line fit the story, at least what I have so far.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

...least that's what I'll *tell* people.

Pick it at random then justify it later! That's more or less what I did with Fighting Instincts. Hey, maybe your *subconscious* mind saw all those connections when you were picking it... *g*

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

Occasionally I think of a title that's absolutely perfect right off. One of my fics from a few months ago was partly inspired by Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice", so I knew I wanted to use one of the lines there for a title (and I actually got complimented on my title for that fic, so it was a good choice). Usually this happens with poetry. The title I named as my favorite, "For Thine is the Kingdom", is of course from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", but though there are other titles of mine I also love, I picked that one because of the way that poem worked with my fic. I used bits of that section of the poem as pre-chapter quotes, where each chapter fits so well with its lines of poetry and the whole thing fits with the title that it just felt, to me, like everything was enhanced.

But more often, good titles elude me. When I can't think of something good on my own, which is often, I go looking through lines of poetry, very occasionally song lyrics, but most often quotes. The Quotations Page (http://www.quotationspage.com) is my best friend when I need a title. *g* I just plug a theme in my fic (like hope, or understanding) and just go looking for something that feels right. It only rarely fails me.

As a reader, I prefer titles that jump out at me, and I probably won't read titles that come from really well-known songs (all the fics called "My Immortal", for instance, make me cringe), though mostly when I read fic I look at pairing and summary first, and tend to be forgiving of titles. I know how hard it is to think of good ones, after all. :p

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

That quotations page is great- thanks!

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom. Hi!

Usually, the fic will tell me its title while I'm working on it. It oftentimes has something to do with the underlying theme of the work.

The one fic I have complete on my LJ is "Scarlet Folds of Heaven", which was chosen specifically for the flowery vaginal imagery (It's a jokefic. I was playing up the punchline with the title). The WIP I have had the working title of "Lingering" because it deals with a character putting her life on hold after a loved one's death. I've now pretty firmly set myself on that title, and I'm managed to incorporate that as a major theme throughout the work.

I prefer simple titles. A simple word or phrase. I absolutely abhor song lyrics as titles (Chapter titles, sure. Fic titles, no). And I have an aversion to people who do titles in Latin or another foreign language. It comes across as a little pretentious unless there's an in-fic reason for it.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Scarlet Folds of Heaven made me laugh- I would so totally cringe away from that title, but if I know the author means it a little satirically, I think it's AWESOME.

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom

I explained most of "Singularity" in the poll itself, but didn't get to "Mutually Assured," which is, of course, simultaneously the idea of mutual assurance (positive) and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Which pretty much sums up the relationship between those two characters. :)

There's a story I'm working on now that I'm tentatively calling "Trust All-Stars" after the Rasputina song primarily because 1. the song is entirely thematically appropriate, but the "All-Stars/All Stars" thing is also character/canon appropriate. (The comic book the characters appeared in often had Star, or even "All-Star" in the title.) Don't know if I'm keeping it, but yeah.

So really, my favorite titles are the ones that mean like twelve things, all relating to the story.

But, when I can't think of anything good, I just crib a line from a relevant poem or song. This is... unfortunately common. :\

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

my favorite titles are the ones that mean like twelve things, all relating to the story.

That is so hard to pull off- I'm in awe when I see a writer do it. *nod*

[diurnal-lee.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

My favourite titles are deceptively simple ones that are easy to remember, and that work on multiple levels via wordplay (puns, misquotes, multiple meanings, common phrases turned on their heads, etc.)

A good example is Hawks and Hands by Dira Sudis.

The title is easy to remember because that line from Hamlet has become a common saying, and because the fic is overtly about Hawks and hands:
- the main characters play for the Chicago Blackhawks; and
- the condition of one MC's hands is a major plot point.

More subtly, the story involves a wide variety of communication via touch (hands-on) and is frequently concerned with the subculture of teams (a crew: all hands).

Getting back to Shakespear, the title alludes to Hamlet's line about knowing "a hawk from a handsaw", which is appropriate because:
- both MCs are a little crazy, and their psychoses are explored over the course of the story;
- one MC is concerned with the mystery of his father's killing; and
- the ghost of a murdered character appears to the MCs, and jingles his dogtags (rattles his chains).

There's probably more in there that I'm missing, and that makes it even more awesome to me.

[eclective.livejournal.com]

Yes! So much so. When someone crams allusions and meanings into a title that are capable of being unpicked like that once you've examined the fic's themes, it really does make me drool.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Here via MetaFandom -- Oh, dear, looking over my body of work I've got everything from lyrics to movies to Daniel Defoe... but they've all found their titles by the first time I decided to hit 'save', with only two exceptions ("3/4 Time", which went through about six working titles and I never did think I really captured the idea of a relationship haunted by a missing third party, and "Minefields", which got re-titled when it abruptly grew a new last third). Chapter titles for longer fics are what gives me fits, I tend to fall back on odd quotes and lyrics that seem apropos to the action of the chapter in some way, when nothing else comes to mind. (I think one of my favorite original chapter-titles is "30.06 and 103.50", IE shotgun gauge and the price of a marriage licence...) And I will staunchly defend my use of "Golf And Strangling Animals" for a chapter that involves allusions to masturbation against all, erm, comers... >;)

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

they've all found their titles by the first time I decided to hit 'save',

That is astonishing to me. I find chapter titles a lot less problematic, because they can be themed and also they don't feel as *significant* as the main title, you know? And LOL @ Golf and Strangling Small Animals!

[redsnake05.livejournal.com]

Most of my titles are short and related to the theme or emotional arc, or to an image that encapsulates the theme. Blue, blue skies is an example of that sort of title - blue skies are used as an image of freedom and possibility a few times during the fic. Others are really straightforward, and even a bit cliched. Didn't make us deserved a better title, but that's the one that got stuck in my head, and it does reflect the conflict and tension in the story, and Daniel says it twice in the fic. I still can't think of anything better.

I'd love to use more grandiose and literary titles, but, really, I seldom bother with reading the title of fics I do read, and go straight for the summary instead. If I enjoy the fic, I'll look then at the title. Sometimes, reading the perfect title at the very end is like a snifter of Amaretto at the end of a gourmet meal.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

If I enjoy the fic, I'll look then at the title. Sometimes, reading the perfect title at the very end is like a snifter of Amaretto at the end of a gourmet meal.

Hmm... I can sort of see this, but I disagree. I think a title, even if it isn't *obvious*, will guide how a reader reads the text- what seems significant, what they pick up on. I mean, the titles you list as en example will make the reader pay a lot more attention to when Daniel says Didn't Make Us, or will make the images of blue skies feel a lot more symbolically weighty. It seems like that's one of the purposes of a title, to me, and it can't do the job of influencing you reading if you read it last.

[eclective.livejournal.com]

I am an utterly pretentious git and adore allusive titles, non-straightforward titles, and all that kind of crap. I'm pretentious about picking them, too; I refuse to call my fics things that sound too generic, and I generally have fun picking titles and feel I'm at least good enough at it not to bug myself. I think a big title-genre that you missed out that I tend to enjoy, actually, is titles with multiple layers of meaning; when I can return to them after the fic and they tie back into the story in more than one clever way, it makes my litgeek brain go "oooo".

I can usually like song lyric titles as long as they're not obvious; a good rule of thumb is "if you can use this song in an AMV of the series without making me hurk, go for it". "Bring Me To Life" would make me gag utterly, but if the reference is obscurish and the song lyrics are relevant to the plot in more than a generic way, great. They tend to be pretty, and pretty gets me.

I will, admit, read fic based on title; honestly, my fandoms are tiny enough that I'll basically read anything (seriously, Ar Tonelico, anyone?), but in the past when they've been bigger, I've definitely gravitated, because a title that looks like someone spent some time over it tends to make me think that they put a lot into the fic, too.

/waffle

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

I am an utterly pretentious git

I, sadly, am only a wanna-be pretentious git. May I peek into the clubhouse? But no, seriously- I would love to be better at coming up with the kinds of allusive titles I love, and I wish I had more exposure to poetry. Guess I'll have to work on that.

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

The favourite titles I've got - two are mine, one is my girlfriend's - are "Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad", "Sometimes the Fast Lane Hits a Fork", and "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet". The first two are mine, Doctor Who fics, the third is allfireburns', and it's a Torchwood fic.

I don't know, the last one is very tied into the plot, though you don't realise how much until you get to the end. The other two... well, "Fast Lane" is a fic I'm working on that was started and planned in the week between the last two episodes of the most recent series of Doctor Who. There was a cliffhanger ending for the second-to-last episode, and the fic is my response (and "fix") to that cliffhanger. I'm a bit amused by it, as the fic involves time loops and timelines branching and whatnot.

"Autumn Days" is a very introspective piece set just after the previously mentioned finale. It doesn't have much bearing on the actual plot, such as there is, but it definitely fits the emotional notes of the story.


...shutting up now.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Wow, "Sometimes you hear the bullet" is exactly one of those fics I would instantly click based on title alone. It hooks me on the action plot right on the surface but I KNOW there must be something else going on that I'll understand by the end- it just seems likely that it was really carefully chosen by the author. Good example!

[busaikko]

I write, and I'm fat-headed, so one thing I like to check is that the title is Google-able (on the wrong hand, my title Building Bombs is very non-Googleable, because it links to explosives and is likely to attract the CIA).

I get very annoyed when a title which I thought was very creative turns out to have been from a song lyric *if* that's not mentioned somewhere in the header. I feel cheated.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

I get very annoyed when a title which I thought was very creative turns out to have been from a song lyric *if* that's not mentioned somewhere in the header.

Really? You mean, because you don't like song lyric titles, and you feel like you got tricked into liking the title? Hm.

Because I am the opposite- too obvious song titles make me roll my eyes, but I love going "ooh, what a wonderful like of poetry for this fic" and I don't care if it came from a song or not, as long as it wasn't obvious.

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

I did go through a period in my writing (I've just now gone and verified this) where I basically wrote lots and lots of songfic, although it wasn't defined as songfic at the time. (As I recall, songfic back in 2000/2001 was a story that literally was about a song, a character realising something via the medium of some popular song - that was not what I was doing). Lyrics or snippets of the song would instead be the emotional theme, or would inspire me, and usually didn't involve the rest of the song. Some of these ended up as titles.

The more experience I got at writing, the less and less I did this - I don't think I've done it for ages now (except that one fic I wrote that one time, but it's pretty much drawerfic and probably won't see the light of day anyway).

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

As I recall, songfic back in 2000/2001 was a story that literally was about a song, a character realising something via the medium of some popular song - that was not what I was doing

I thought that was still the definition of songfic? Which is why songfic is universally mocked (whereas just using lyrics in a title is problematic, but not automatically awful). Maybe I missed the definition-changing memo?

It does make me happy to hear that titles got easier for you as you wrote more, though!

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

More metafandom peeps.

I get titles all over the map. Usually I'll have a working title for a story that I hold onto until I have a complete draft, and then I'll scramble for SOMETHING ELSE TO CALL IT OH GOD, because usually the working title is something like "John and Delenn talk about porn" or "Dubious fic of dubious dubiosity" (That one actually wound up being called "Dubious Consent" because I wasn't feeling especially clever.)

One thing I do try and do is if I'm building up a series I like to have all of the titles relate to one another in some way. It also makes coming up with new titles both challenging and easier.

My titles are about half crap, to be honest; the more clever a title is the more likely I've spent a lot of time working on the story it's attached to. "Ode on Shadow and Form" went through about half a dozen title possibilities when I was searching, "Scenes, Triptych" was something I jammed on at the last minute. (As were "Flying Free" and "Ties That Bind".) Though sometimes a not-especially-clever title is just an indication that I'd been working too hard and was just glad to get it done...

The only exception so far has been "The Space Your Body Occupies", which I came up with when I decided I needed to write the story, even before I had all the action planned out yet. Okay, the action is "The two guys get into a five foot radius of each other andthentheyhadsex", but that sex scene took me three days and a lot of head-desk contact to write. And jeez, it's perfect. I guess the lesson is to not write anything until perfect title inspiration strikes. *snrk*

Oh! Another thing I do is to try and write a title like an episode title for the show. This works best for shows that have a pretty consistent "feel" for their titles.

(Also, more Jason Webley fans? They're everywhere! Everyone I knew in college was an addict.)

(Also, T.S. Eliot seems to have been quoted out. I think I'll title my next three stories from the last chorus of Shelley's "Hellas". Whaddya think--"Like wrecks of a dissolving dream", "Riddles of death Thebes never knew", "Votive tears and symbol flowers"... not really me.)

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Usually I'll have a working title for a story that I hold onto until I have a complete draft, and then I'll scramble for SOMETHING ELSE TO CALL IT OH GOD, because usually the working title is something like "John and Delenn talk about porn" or "Dubious fic of dubious dubiosity"

That wasn't what I meant by working title at all! I NEVER use working titles (by my definition), but my hard drive is full of "SPN- the one where Dean shoots Sam" or "SG1- the squicky slavefic" or "SGA- the alien POV thingie" or "fun with amnesia!" or "kinky id vortex, with buttplug" or such. Those are just.. descriptions. Not working *titles*!

One thing I do try and do is if I'm building up a series I like to have all of the titles relate to one another in some way.

I LOVE when authors can do that. Themed series are wonderful.

Also, more Jason Webley fans? They're everywhere!

I take it you must be from the Pacific NW then? I haven't met anybody who's even heard of him since I left Seattle!

Unless, eek, is he popular now? If so, I won't be able to use him for titles after all! And that's just a crying shame. His lyrics hit me where I live.

[with-apostrophe.livejournal.com]

I don't like titles when the author has used something from a song, or literature, adn then has a comment in the blurb that says "You of course all know where the title is from" or some kind of comment that has an assumption in it that everyone would know what it refers to.

I also don't understand the concept of calling your story something that has really has little to do with the plot, but sounds impressive. I'd prefer the attention of people remembering the story and title because they were linked, rather than them being impressed at my literary/pop culture knowledge for 5 mins and then forgetting.

BTW - if anyone calls anything "Deus Ex Machina" they immediately get the booby prize for the most over-used title ever.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think that's like readers who complain about authors using too many big words- for the author that WASN'T obscure, so they don't think it's showing off, in much the same way that someone with a naturally large vocabulary really isn't being pretentious when they use it (and are just being fake if they refrain from using it). I would much rather read things by authors smarter than me and try to learn.

Then again, actually SAYING "of course you all know" and not actually saying where it's from strikes me as a bit rude.